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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Bad Things Happen In Twenties: A Tale of Horror

Homeownership, as I see it.

Morning Readers,

(Disclaimer: In order to properly express my feelings, I'll be telling my story in more pictures than usual today.)

I don't think we, as a people, give coffee enough credit. To the innocent, uncaffeinated bystander, it's merely a drink, a few ground up beans whose significance is lost because that steaming cup is simply a drink.

But no.

As it turns out, coffee is the only thing standing between me and a padded cell. And to that I say. "A tip of the cap to you, Folgers commercials."

"Smells like I'm not gonna tell mom and dad I was in jail last night."

As I've written about our experience with the Split level, there have been many times I've stopped and wondered whether you guys think the calamities which have befallen our home can happen to anyone besides Tom Hanks in Money Pit. "Maybe they think I'm making it up. Can this many things actually go wrong with a house before you sell?" I ask myself. Please look me deep in the eyes, Readers, and nod slowly along as I say...

At this point, I wish I were lying.

Things were on a roll. We had showings. Other people, strangers, wanted to see the house, and Husband I had permanently taken up residence on cloud nine.

Husband I watched Poltergiest over the weekend, and I couldn't help feeling for Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams as they battled to save their home and also anymore china from being thrown against the walls. And then, right as they think the house is clean, spoiler alert, their big, brass bed gets sucked into another dimension.

Paige, did one of your kids get pulled into the flat screen? Is that what you're trying to tell us?

Thankfully, no. It was more like things being spit back at us.

Husband: OK, I hate to tell you this, but this, but the drain is backing up in the basement.
Me: How bad is it?
Husband: You may want to go look and judge for yourself.

A rough description of what I saw

We needed to have the main drain run. No big deal. In the past, this has been a quick job, a little bit of money, but the show needed to get back on the road. After all, someone was coming to look at the house at 5pm.

Me: Hi, plumber. Can you have the drain run and everything cleared up this morning?

Plumber: I sure can. That'll be ninety-nine dollars.

Me: Great!

*Time lapse of an hour*

Plumber: So, I can't get through at seventy feet and I'm pulling out mud.

Me:...

Plumber: That's pretty bad. I'm sending a guy out with a camera and we'll figure out what's going on.

Me:...

My face

By this point in the house game, my spider sense is well honed in the area of disaster. From the kitchen, the checkbook had started emitting a high-pitched warning signal only I could hear. I retrieved more coffee for myself, retrieved the toddler from trying to run in the street, and waited.

Camera Man: Sorry I took so long.

Me: It's ok. I'm not the biggest fan of rushing to impending doom.

Camera Man: So what I'm doing is running this wire down the drain and it'll let us see what's down there. All right, so you see how there's roots everywhere? Uh huh. And if we keep going down the line... there. Right there. A wall of mud.

Me: The kind we can just clear out and use as facials?

Camera Man: I'll head out to the yard and see where it's at. This is bad.

Me: I expect nothing less. They made a movie in the 80's based on this house.

Camera Man: Ok, mam. The spot here by your fence is where the drain's collapsed.

Me: Collapsed? As in "no longer bearing its own weight" collapsed?

Camera man: Twelve feet down, this giant tree's roots have finally smashed through the drain. We'll have to bring in a backhoe, dig down, put in a new pipe all the way to the house, and close everything up. Should cost six.

Me: Dollars?

Camera Man: Six Thousand.

Me:....

What to do?

We did the only thing we could, signed the papers, got the credit card at the ready and scheduled everything for 8:30am.

But it's raining today. And it's October. It rains a lot in October.

Halloween come early this year, and it ain't filled with candy corn, children. I don't know how this is all going to end, my friends, but all I can say is...